


I Never Let You Go

by Thee_Maxwell



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, minimal comfort, mitch and emily were good parents just in the wrong way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27502816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thee_Maxwell/pseuds/Thee_Maxwell
Summary: Emily thinks that, subconsciously, it makes her remember the warmer parts of her relationship with Luke. The times where he’d bounce around the house, doing whatever he wanted, but usually singing while doing it.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	I Never Let You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all this is a song fic based around "What Hurts The Most" by Rascal Flatts bc it sounds like Unsaid Emily but from Emily's perspective. I don't think I've ever written a true and proper song fic but. I promise it's good. It just hurts a little bit.
> 
> THIS IS A SAD STORY, THERE ARE NO GOOD FEELINGS. I HAD AN IDEA AND NEEDED PEOPLE TO SUFFER WITH ME. THAT IS ALL.
> 
> Okay but seriously this heavily deals with loss and the death of Luke and how it affects Emily. It involves mentions of a funeral and not quite survivor's guilt, but guilt over death nonetheless. 
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy, and please take care of yourselves.

Emily liked to listen to the radio while she worked. It was nice background noise; if she was just knitting, or grading papers, or making food, the music could fill any silence that might be there. 

She thinks that, subconsciously, it makes her remember the warmer parts of her relationship with Luke. The times where he’d bounce around the house, doing whatever he wanted, but usually singing while doing it. He could be singing lyrics, be they his own or from whatever music he was into at the time, or humming out melodies to play on his guitar. Regardless, there is always something coming from him.

Correction: was something coming from him. 

It had been ten years, and she still thought of him in the present tense. A decade somehow felt both like forever and like the blink of an eye, especially when there was only Mitch in the house with her. 

So the radio helps with filling a void that Emily refuses to recognize. She was currently listening to the Billboard Hot 100 since it generally offered a variety of things to listen to. Some songs weren’t great, but music could be subjective.

In her office at the college she taught at, staying late to finish before heading home, she was reading an assignment her student had turned in; a poorly written poem, and as such, Emily half paid attention to it. The radio droned about some new song by some country artist that she hadn’t heard of before. Rascal Flatts, she thinks she hears?

“-their newly released song ‘What Hurts The Most.’ Enjoy.” A deep guitar riff began, followed by a lighter but sad feeling violin rang over. A voice sang out the lyrics, “I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house,” and, of course, it used a classic literary device to evoke sadness; rain. Emily rolled her eyes but smiled sadly because, while it could be overplayed, it was a classic for a reason. 

It continued talking of a general sadness over losing someone, but nothing specific. It could be applied to anything. But Emily put the poem down. Something just told her that she needed to listen. 

“Even though going on with you gone still upsets me.” Emily zoned out for a minute. The line hit too personally. The anniversary was too recent. She reached for a small picture of Luke that was kept on her desk, running her finger over his face, fighting tears from falling.

She started listening back to the song and, having realized she missed most of the chorus, was hit extra hard when she heard the singer softly explain, “not seeing that loving you. That’s what I was trying to do.” 

God. 

Emily’s mind flooded with every argument that she and Luke ever had; how she just wanted him to have a good chance at life, that she just cared about his future, and how she tried to explain that music was so hard to succeed in. How all she wanted was the best for him, that she just wanted to know that he would be safe and happy. She thought he would understand that all this resistance came with nothing but love and concern for him. 

“It's hard to deal with the pain of losing you everywhere I go, but I'm doing it.” After the police explained what happened, she remembers every single place she and Mitch had to go to, taking down every missing person poster. 

“Still harder getting up, getting dressed, living with this regret.” It still felt like her fault. She was the reason he ran away. Maybe if he had a safe home to go to, they wouldn’t have had to get those hot dogs. Maybe they could have come to the Patterson’s to get a good, healthy dinner before the performance. It was always the favored house of the boys; even when Emily didn’t love the band, she loved the bandmates. Reggie and Alex were always good for Luke. Maybe she was the cause of them all being dead.

The tears won. 

“But I know if I could do it over,” what she wouldn’t give to rewind that night. “I would trade, give away, all the words that I saved in my heart that I left unspoken.” There was so much that she wanted to tell Luke. That his music was good. Really good. That she enjoyed it, even if she never showed it. She wanted to tell him that no matter what, she’s proud of him. She would have been. Even if he ended up as a janitor, she would still love him. 

A lot of it had gotten off her chest at the funeral. It was still so fresh then, but that was the first time Luke being dead felt real. He wasn’t going to just come back home. He was gone forever. They couldn’t get his guitar, but they buried him with his lucky pick, which had still been on his person when the ambulance had gotten to the scene. 

She remembers looking into his casket, seeing a young boy with his whole future set out in front of him, and just whispering to him as much of an apology as she could choke out. It could never be enough, she recognized, but she still hoped he heard it, wherever he was.

The chorus came back around, and Emily made sure to listen this time.

“What hurts the most was being so close, and having so much to say, and watching you walk away.” All she could think was, ‘how did I miss this the first time?’ Luke riding his bike away, guitar and his school backpack and nothing else played in her head. He just looked so angry and hurt in a way Emily could never grasp fully. 

She hated thinking about it more than anything. She should have kept running, or told Mitch to keep the car going and chase after him, or searched more for him. 

She hated that she had to walk away from him at the funeral. Really, Mitch had to tear her from his casket. They already left on bad terms once, and after she apologized, she couldn’t bear to leave, hoping that he would forgive her even though she couldn’t deserve it.

“And never knowing what could have been.” Emily liked to think, occasionally, about what would have happened if the boys hadn’t died. It was the only amount of joy she could bring herself to feel when thinking about the band. The “what ifs” usually got pretty heavy on her conscience, but “what if they made it big” was always light. It usually ended with Luke returning to give her a big “I told you so” and a hug, where she could get her chance to apologize and make things right.

Instead, she was in her office on a weeknight sobbing about her son who died too young. 

Emily turned off the radio after that. She cried for a few minutes longer but was eventually able to compose herself. She wiped her eyes with some tissues, and looked down, realizing that the poem she had been reading before was completely ruined. She threw it out, wrote down an A on the grading sheet, and scribbled “lost paper” as a note to tell the student. 

Her clock read 6:48, which was late enough for her. She returned the picture of Luke to its spot before standing, grabbing her purse and keys from inside it. She stood there for a moment before leaving, and decided to call Mitch. 

He answered after three rings.

“Patterson household.”

“Hi honey, it’s Emily.” Her voice was weaker than she wished, and very clearly sounded like she had been crying.

“Emily, what happened?” Mitch sounded frantic. She didn’t cry much.

“Nothing, I just. I was thinking about Luke again. I’m leaving work now, but I wanted to let you know that I’m going to swing by the cemetery first. It um. It’s been a while since I’ve gone and it just feels like the time. I didn’t go on the anniversary. I couldn’t.” She was ashamed.

“Okay, sweetie. Do you want me to meet you there?”

Emily shook her head, forgetting Mitch couldn’t see her. “No, it’s okay. Thank you, though.”

“Okay, well, I’ll have dinner ready for you when you get home.”

“Thanks, love. I’m going to let you go now.”

“Alright. Oh, and, Emily?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell him how proud of him I am, would you?

“Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. 
> 
> And yes, I cried while writing this. I was also listening to Spotify while writing and it decided to play Unsaid Emily and WHTM right next to each other which didn't help.


End file.
